


times upon this star

by Ruriruri



Category: KISS (US Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 20:40:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16667920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruriruri/pseuds/Ruriruri
Summary: Too old for this. Too old to be this lonely, and too young to feel like this much of a failure. Amid KISS' faltering fortunes in the late eighties, Paul confronts Gene.





	times upon this star

There’s this dream he keeps having. They’re in the studio again, the old gang again. Ace and Peter looking affable, maybe almost sober. They’re recording demos at _The Electric Lady_.

Ace is whistling off-key between songs, a wad of chewing gum in his mouth. His guitar work is flashier than it’s been in years, flippant imperfection, and Peter isn’t asking for ideas on the drum fills. It’s quiet work, too quiet, not much talking except for when someone decides they need to start over. No bickering or bitching, just pure focus, the way things used to be when they were hungry for it, really hungry for it, and sixty bucks a week was a princely sum to do what they loved.

Paul’s guitar feels as worthless as a lead pipe in his hands and he keeps missing cues, but no one says a word. His fingers are slick against the strings and his voice doesn’t have its usual strength. It’s like he’s trying to sing through a vat of molasses. Nobody comments. He’d think they didn’t notice, except they glance at each other every so often, maybe in concern, maybe in pity.

“I don’t remember this one,” Paul finally confesses, and Peter glances at him blithely, sort of smiles.

“You should. You wrote it.”

“I don’t remember it at all.”

Ace repeats the intro and then waits; they all wait, standing around him like his teachers in elementary school, hovering at his desk, expecting an answer when he never heard the question. _Pay attention, Stanley. You’re brighter than this. We know you’re brighter than this._ He’s cornered. He’s smothered.

“Can you get it back?” Gene asks, and he doesn’t sound concerned, doesn’t sound concerned at all, and Paul wakes up in a cold sweat.

***

It fades, though; it always fades. Morning always comes, or early afternoon, and he finds his off-tour routine again, a workout, a shower, a fussy half-hour just picking out clothes. A call to Pam, whose indifference chews through his ego like a termite infestation. Lunch and dinner and then he haunts the more exclusive L.A. clubs with the regularity of a dialysis patient. The crowd’s getting younger, or maybe he’s just getting older. Next year forty’ll stare Gene square in the face, and Paul’s not as far behind as he’d like to be.

Too old for this. Too old to be this lonely, and too young to feel like this much of a failure. After half an hour on the dancefloor he heads to the club’s restroom just to check his reflection, retouch his eyeliner. Hope for something new. He’s surprised when he sees Gene walk out of a stall through the corner of his eye as he’s dragging his fingers through his sweaty curls, trying and failing to revitalize them. Gene’s no drinker and he’s even less of a dancer, so he must be here for the same reason as Paul himself is: just looking for a night’s lay.

“Gene,” he says, and he feels a little warmer, even turning around from the mirror to greet him. “I didn’t think you were still in town.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You keep yourself busy.”

Gene shrugs and washes his hands.

“Want a wingman?” Paul says nonchalantly. “I mean, not that you’re exactly picky, but…”

“Hell, no.” Gene’s looking at the mirror now, frowning at his own face. Paul wonders if it’s for the same reason as him, if age is starting to worry him, too, but then Gene just wipes a stray smear of lipstick off his cheek with a paper towel. “I know how you operate, Paul. You’ll duck out.”

“And leave you with both of them. Not that bad a deal.” He’s trying too hard to keep it easy, keep it light. The strain’s just beneath the surface. Gene, thankfully, doesn’t seem to question it, apart from a slightly furrowed brow. “Come on, why not? Let’s talk up some girls together.”

It’s as close as he can manage to begging for a dose of that old nostalgia. He never shared girls with Gene the way he had on occasion with Ace and Peter. Gene’s appetite, however enormous, was oddly vanilla, or maybe he just didn’t want competition. But they had, early on, helped each other out, before the girls became something automatic, something ordinary. Back when they had to share hotel rooms during their first few tours. _“Gene majored in theology, he’s educated—no, really—”_ he remembered saying once to some giggly, half-high college girl after a show. _“And a cunning linguist, just look at that tongue—”_ God, somehow the old, stupid line had worked well enough that Gene had made it with her that night, evidenced by the moans he heard from his hotel room a couple hours later and Ace’s disgusted banging on the door (“get _another_ room, Geno, Jesus—”).

“I’m not here for that tonight.” Gene pauses. “There’s a producer here I’m trying to meet. You’ve probably heard of him, he’s—”

That shit again. Paul can feel his expression twitch before he forces it back into stiff neutrality. It’s a face he’s spent years perfecting, through all the mocking interviews and press conferences, utterly straight and utterly unruffled, except it’s paper-thin in front of Gene. Or it should be.

“Okay. Cool.”

“Don’t get pissy. It’s business.”

“I said it’s cool, Gene.” Paul pockets his eyeliner and heads to the door without a wave. “Have fun schmoozing.”

He doesn’t wait on Gene’s apology. He knows he won’t get one as he gets back to the dancefloor, feeling seedy, feeling wasted even without a drop of alcohol. There’s a girl, all fluffy red hair and a preening little smile, and he starts to chat her up on automatic, smooth over his frustration in the easiest way he can.

He stops when he realizes she has no idea who he is.

***

 He doesn’t even turn on the radio on the drive home, no more than twenty minutes later. The housekeeper’s gone for the night, but she remembered, at least, to leave the light on in his bedroom. Another sentimental holdover from when he was on the road so often he wanted every hotel room to feel like home, at least a little, wanted the light on to greet him when he came back. Back then, the light was rarely the only one welcoming him back.

It’s too early for bed still, but he finds himself there anyway, lying on top of the covers. A month ago, during the shoot for _The Decline of Western Civilization_ , that bed was covered with blonde Playboy models. Hired hands all. “You can do it,” he’d said to the camera, lazy and smiling as the girls sprawled over him like vultures to a carcass. “I did,” he’d said, the implication obvious— _you can make it, you can have what I have_. Another fucking lie, as potent as a morphine drip. He hadn’t made it. Hadn’t been a blazing success, much less a legend. Just a spark for everyone else to copy. He hadn’t done a damn thing but kept KISS on life support for the last eight years.

He doesn’t hear the car pull up, but he sees the lights from the window. It’s Gene’s. Paul comes downstairs, has the door open before Gene can even ring the bell.

“Get anywhere with that producer?”

Gene doesn’t take the bait.

“Far enough.”

“Are you going to come in?”

“I can only come where I’m invited.” Gene says it straight-faced enough that Paul nearly cracks a smile at the reference despite himself.

“Come in, then.” Paul shuts the door behind him. Gene makes himself at home, walking to the living room where KISS’ gold albums hang like a dead pharaoh’s playthings. He’s leaning in to inspect them as if he doesn’t have the same ones at home. Paul watches him from just inside the door, just watches, just waits, until Gene turns to speak.

“Paul, come here.”

He heads over to where Gene’s standing, looking tired, looking bored. Gene’s only other mode these days, looking disgusted, must be out of commission for now.

“You’re acting like I shot you. You _keep_ acting like I shot you. Snap out of it.”

“Shut up.”

“You’ve been in my band for fifteen years, Paul. Don’t tell me to shut up.”

“ _Your_ band.” Paul starts to laugh. “It’s your band now? Well, why the fuck not. Your shitty movies, your shitty marketing—your shitty band. Take it.”

Gene shakes his head, rolls his eyes.

“I don’t care what’s gotten into you, you need to calm down.”

“What’s gotten into me is my partner taking half the credit when I put in all the work. What’s gotten into me is you blowing me off for—”

“When have I turned you down, Paul? Name it. Name one tour I said no to.” Gene’s voice was starting to rise out of that customary even tone, that fake-intellectual enunciation he used to override his New York accent. Slivers of it were coming back like sea glass washing ashore. “In fact, name one concert I was even late for.”

“Name one song on the last four albums you actually fucking wrote yourself.”

Gene doesn’t answer, and somehow, that’s worse than if he’d tried to defend himself. But it just confirms what Paul’s known for years. Tossing money at some wannabe songwriters to ghostwrite his stuff. He’d get someone else out there playing bass for him if he could. And why not? KISS is a dying investment, hemorrhaging funds. A band that can’t keep its members, much less a crowd. A band that has to beg for MTV coverage. Any businessman with half a brain would cut out.

Any businessman.

But any friend—

Paul swallows.

“Forget it. Just forget it. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Hollywood or Queens. You’re still the same asshole that used to chase pennies down the street.”

There’s a flash of something like pain in Gene’s dark eyes then. Something like shame, as if he’s been ashamed of anything in years—but he is ashamed, ashamed of the scars of childhood poverty. Ashamed they’re still there, still motivating him, leaving him restless and anxious no matter his millions.

He shouldn’t feel any satisfaction in hurting Gene like that. But he does until Gene finally responds.

“And you’re the asshole that threw them.”

“Fuck this shit. _Fuck_ this shit.”

He’s barely aware until after he’s done it that he’s pushed Gene up against the wall. Gene’s bulky, broad in a way he hasn’t been since they first met. He never works out. Never does a damn thing onstage anymore but obediently rock his head to the beat and stick his tongue out for the kids. It’s easy enough to hold him there, hand clenched around his shoulder. It’s easy enough until Gene yanks him forward, weight against strength, turns him around, and Paul’s back suddenly finds the wall. Above him, the framed gold records rattle on their mountings.

He wishes they’d shatter.

Gene’s breath is ragged against Paul’s ear. Closer than they’ve been since their last interview, pushed together like puppets on camera. Closer than they’ve been since their last concert, leaning into the same microphone.

(can you get it back)

(would you _want_ it back)

Paul inhales the mix of cologne and sweat on Gene’s skin, so reminiscent it’s painful. His own breaths are an uneven rattle that only get faster the longer he’s pinned there, seconds that seem to stretch and tangle. He doesn’t protest—maybe that’s what Gene expects, what he wants—and doesn’t bother with a struggle. Doesn’t want to.

“KISS is all I have, Gene.”

“I know.”

“You’re all I have.”

“I know.”

Gene drops his grip on Paul’s shoulders. Quickly, Paul reaches over, grasps Gene’s wrist before he can turn away.

“Don’t go.” It’s pathetic. It’s so pathetic he wishes he could swallow the words up, but they’re spilling out like water. Any longer and he’ll be babbling like a child. Any longer and he’ll erode, past the remnants of Paul and the failed ghost of Starchild and right back to Stanley Eisen. Right back to the kid Gene first met, that fat eighteen-year-old kid with no right ear and no confidence at all.

Right back to who he always was.

“Please don’t go.” Both hands now, grabbing onto one of Gene’s arms, stroking his skin. A creature comfort he shouldn’t be so starved for. Paul can feel the flush in his face as well as he can feel the disgusting lump in his throat. Contact, just a little contact, just a little warmth. None of which he expects Gene to provide. Paul can’t even bear to look him in the eye. He knows damn well what expression has to be there, the pity, the revulsion. Gene despises weak people. Weak people like Peter and Ace, slaves to addiction. Weak people like him that couldn’t move forward and couldn’t change, kept shoving out the same desperate routines for a shrinking audience.

It’s a surprise, then, when Gene’s hand closes roughly around his. It’s a surprise when Gene’s chapped lips meet his neck and he whispers four words against his skin.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Gene’s kissing his collarbone, neither tender nor harsh but familiar, oddly familiar, as if this isn’t the first time he’s touched him like this, pushing back Paul’s hair with his other hand to expose more of his neck. Paul can’t believe it, brown eyes wide, heart pounding a hotly confused cadence. There’s no way in the hell this is happening. It doesn’t make sense. Any second now and Gene’s going to throw it all in his face, going to laugh and leave him here after all like a stupid, desperate groupie—any second, he’s just waiting on Paul to kiss back, touch back—and he won’t allow Gene that; he won’t allow Gene that—

“Gene, I’m not one of your whores.”

“I know that.”

“I’m not—I’m not giving you ammunition to hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” And now Gene’s pulled away enough to stare at him, looking bewildered. He’s still clasping Paul’s hand. “You think I’m trying to hurt you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No! Shit, Paul, I’m trying to help!”

Unreal. Absolutely unreal. Paul wants to say Gene can’t pull that shit with him. He’s not a groupie, not a Playboy playmate. He isn’t someone who’s going to be gone in the morning; he’ll be there, defiantly _there_ , tour after tour, album after album. Whatever happens is going to matter, and keep mattering, whether or not KISS collapses. Whether or not Paul does.

He wants to say a lot of things, but his lips meet Gene’s instead.

That’s all it takes. Gene’s claiming, already claiming, mouth hard and heavy against Paul’s, tongue probing for an entrance Paul hesitates to offer, at first. Fifteen years on the road taught him all he ever needed to know about how little an opening Gene needs to make it with a girl. But to make it with him—he’s panting already, lips parting, anticipation and anxiousness merging. He wants to know. He wants to feel. Gene’s tongue slips in easily, hot and eager, and his chest is pressed against Paul’s, bearing down on him against the wall. Paul finds his footing gradually, almost shyly, tongue flicking briefly against Gene’s mouth, but before long he’s caught up in it, too. Before long, his arms are locked around Gene’s shoulders and their hips are flush, shoving together in an erratic, desperate rhythm that’s making Paul groan and Gene chuckle lowly. The fears, the paranoia, they’re melting into simple want.

Then Gene’s hand goes to Paul’s Levi’s. Nothing bespoke, nothing custom. Just a tight pair of jeans, erection outlined and straining painfully against the fabric. Snap. Snap. Then the zipper sliding down. Paul can hear his own words reverberating in his brain, said on over a hundred stages now, the Love Gun intro—(i said to her i said i’m a little shy)

(i said honey)

(i said _honey_ )

“I have a bed, Gene,” he finally breathes out, and Gene laughs.

“All right.”

The light’s still on in his bedroom. Of course it is. Gene doesn’t turn it off when he walks in after Paul, and that surprises him. Even early on, Gene wouldn’t shower or get dressed with the rest of the band. Paul had suspected prudishness, or maybe even some weird intimidation. He’s never seen Gene any closer to undressed than on the seventies album covers. So he’s curious, intensely curious as he gets on the bed, starting to unbutton his shirt too quickly to be teasing.

Not quickly enough for Gene, who’s on top of him almost immediately, finishing with the last of the buttons. No undershirt beneath—he’d been looking to get laid, of course—and Gene’s fingers course down Paul’s hairy chest, admiring the muscle beneath. Paul shivers, reaches out to start peeling off Gene’s shirt, except Gene brushes his hand back. Paul’s lips purse, and he rolls his eyes.

“Don’t tell me you’re gonna fuck with your clothes on.”

“Just want to get a better look at the view first.”

“You’ve seen that v—ah.” Gene’s hands are back to Paul’s jeans, tugging them down along with his boxers. Paul kicks them to the floor, watching his bandmate with a sudden nervousness, glancing away as soon as Gene’s eyes meet his. He can feel Gene’s stare on him, traveling down from his mussed hair and streaking eyeliner down to his broad chest on down to his cock. Thoroughly exposed. He feels like those girls must when they’re being assessed, except Gene doesn’t assess, just glances and decides that a pair of tits are good enough. That’s what Paul had always assumed from the Polaroids. But there’s something Gene likes there, there has to be. There has to be because he’s starting to smile.

Being watched, if anything, is making his raging hard-on worse than ever. An audience of one he’s playing for now, an audience he never thought he’d court. Paul reaches for Gene’s slacks this time and Gene lets him, the button and zipper undone with casual deftness. He’s not wearing underwear. Like hell he was meeting a producer at the club. Right now, though, Paul can’t find it in him to mind.

“Have you done this before?”

“Fuck, no. Have you?”

“No.” Gene looks vaguely surprised at the admission, stops in the middle of licking a stripe down Paul’s throat, and Paul adds, “I mean, sure, I’ve had opportunities, but…”

Gene snorts.

“Ace is a catastrophe, not an opportunity. Give me the lube, then.”

Paul has to reach out awkwardly to get it out of the bedside table without pushing Gene off him in the process. Gene’s not exactly helping things, either, still pawing all over him, exploring every inch of his skin with his tongue and fingertips, tracing the jutting contours of his hips and his flat abdomen. Every inch except his cock. It’s distracting as hell, but it’s agonizing, too. He’s never let someone rove over him like this for very long. Not Pam or his litany of one-tour-only girlfriends, certainly none of the groupies that tried to worship him for a half-hour at a time. It would have given them too much control. He’d always redirect them out of their own caresses by turning the focus back on them. Insist they were the prize he was paying homage to.

Now Gene’s doing it to him.

“Hold on—here—”

Paul’s hands are unsteady as he twists open the cap and hands it over. Gene takes the lube and finally yanks off his own shirt, throwing it on the floor. Paul’s not getting the greatest chance at taking a look at Gene from this angle yet, given he’s still bearing down on him, but he’s surprised at what he does see. Oh, Gene doesn’t hit the gym, but he hasn’t gone completely to seed, either. He’s filled out; there’s that intimidating factor to him still, that raw physicality in his presence that’s driving Paul’s pulse insane. Gene doesn’t depend on the girls or the albums or the tours to keep his ego sated. He doesn’t define himself by the trappings of the band. He just is.

Before long, Gene’s pumping Paul’s dick in a rough sort of rhythm, at first ignoring his own erection, which brushes against Paul’s leg in brief moments that turn more intentional by the second. Paul tilts his hips up desperately into the movements, letting him rut against him, grabbing his bandmate by the shoulders, by the hair, thinking Gene might not go for more, thinking Gene might back out. He can’t quell that insecurity entirely, but the bursts of pure, mounting pleasure are enough to silence it. His teeth catch Gene’s lips half on accident the second before Gene slides a slick finger inside him, and he grunts a little in surprise.

“You okay?”

“Fine, I’m fine, I’m great.”

Gene raises an eyebrow.

“You’re nervous as hell. Look, if you’re not up to this—”

“I’m up to this.” Paul exhales, manages to grin through his needy consternation. His dick’s throbbing painfully, Gene’s pause only adding to the tension. “You’re just not the girl I thought I’d be taking to bed tonight.”

“Who’s taking who to bed now?” Gene laughs, adding another finger, crooking it inside him; this time, Paul rocks into it, the pressure, the feeling of fullness weird but not unpleasant. “Lift your legs up. There, yeah.”

Paul’s fingers tighten in Gene’s hair, yanking as Gene adds another finger, splaying them, pumping in and out experimentally. He knows Gene’s just trying to prepare, but it’s maddening, the buzz in his brain only getting worse the longer he’s doing it. The vulnerability’s driving him out of his mind, but so is the need, so is the odd reassurance that Gene’s doing his dead-level best. It’s strangely nostalgic, the look of concentration in Gene’s eyes, that look he had back in Wicked Lester and in the early days of KISS, that intense dedication. Paul never would have thought that look would ever be turned toward him.

His nails bite into Gene’s bare shoulder as he tugs him forward, as if there’s any space between them left. Gene’s dick is still a heavy insinuation against Paul’s thigh, and he’s craving it, craving that fulfillment.

“Go ahead.” Paul’s voice is throaty, breaths a heavy cadence against Gene’s neck. “I’m ready.”

***

There’s this dream he keeps having. They’re in the studio again, the old gang again. Ace and Peter looking affable, maybe almost sober. They’re recording demos at _The Electric Lady_.

His guitar feels like an extension of his body, all exquisite power, barely leashed in, and every note from his throat is clean and effortless. Gene glances at him in approval.

“Looks like you got it back,” he says, clasping an arm around his shoulder, and Paul starts to smile.

“I think so. I think so.”


End file.
